WWE Hall of Famer Jeff Jarrett has opened up about being in the match that directly followed Owen Hart’s tragic fall at Over The Edge 1999.
May 23, 1999, saw WWF Over The Edge take place in Kansas City, Missouri, and featured Owen Hart as The Blue Blazer, challenging The Godfather for the Intercontinental Championship.
Hart would fall from a harness that formed part of his entrance, leading to the star falling approximately 90 feet into the ring and eventually losing his life.
The event would continue, with Jeff Jarrett in a mixed tag team match with Debra against Val Venis & Nicole Bass following the tragic moment.
Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Jarrett shared his memories of the tragedy and stepping into the ring moments after, saying:
“I’ve covered this a couple of different times. I can talk about it so much more clearly now than I could in Kansas City that afternoon.
“As Owen would always do, he would find a little nook and cranny. Anyway, we were dressing in kind of a makeup room connected to a bathroom, a little area. He had done the rehearsals, and I was after him, and they called him, ‘Owen, you got to go up, get up.’
“So I’m in the dressing room by myself, doing what I always do, tape and getting stretched and all this. The screen came, ‘Jeff, you’re up now.’ I knew that wasn’t right. I’m just like, Owen, there’s no way he’s even had time to get to the ring. I was right, and you know, I just knew.
“Matt Miller busted in and said, ‘You’re up.’ I’m like, ‘Owen’s up.’ He goes, No. I said, ‘Well, what happened?’ He said he fell. That stopped the match, not good. He fell. So then there was a T-shirt. Grab my T-shirt, run down there. I knew how to promo beforehand, and as I’m walking through the backstage area, that is the heaviness, and I’ve processed this so many different times, I can live it, I have visualized it, I can visualize it.
“Kevin Kelly, we get in front, me and Deborah and have the interview, Owen’s being wheeled by 10 feet apart. Crazy emotions, hollering, and screaming, and you know 15-20 people following a gurney, and all this, and 3,2,1… Whatever I said, the heaviness was, which I had no idea, but it was on me, and then leave there, like the format process goes, go straight to the ring, and I remember walking out, doing my stuff, and getting up the ring, feeling the top rope, and it was like super, super loose.
“At the time, again, none of that really processed, and then I walked through the ring, I’m like, damn, but I didn’t really understand that at the time.
“Went through the match, and came back through the curtain, Matt and a cop were there, and I said, Let’s go. The cop said, ‘You want to get your stuff?’ I said, ‘Give me 30 seconds.’ I literally threw my stuff, got in the car, and the cop is driving really fast, and he didn’t answer my questions two or three times. I said, ‘Officer, please can you let me know anything? ‘And he just kind of looked over his shoulder and said, ‘It’s not good, Jeff.’ So again I’ve processed this, I didn’t grieve it at the time.
“In 2017, I went through a deep process to grieve it and really understanding what I went through then, because we went to the service in Calgary, stayed up all that night, went and did Raw the next day. It was go home, change your clothes, pack, go to Calgary, the service back at work.”
The incident wasn’t shown on television, with an interview video playing at the point where Owen Hart made his descent. The camera angle would be switched the crowd shot when it became apparent what had happened in the Kemper Arena.
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